last weekend, i was organizing some pattern paper from a favorite manufacturer. then i had some other pattern paper to put away, and got to organizing that manufacturer as well. next thing you know, i ended up going through every single sheet of pattern paper that i own. my life could truely be one of those "if you give a mouse a cookie" books. lol!
as of tonight, my pattern paper is completely organized and cleaned out. every few months, i feel the need to weed through my stash. i'm still holding onto pattern paper that is over 5 years old. obviously, if i have kept it around that long, i really do like it. and i tend to have the mentality of "i can do something with this, right?". but every time i clean through my papers, i get a little bit better about letting go of what i havn't used in forever, or what i can't see myself getting around to using.
these 4 cubes on my ikea expedit shelf hold all of my pattern paper. last week, my stash took up 6 cubes on the shelf. yes, i seriously weeded out 2 full cubes of paper. and it felt good! this doesn't account for my cardstock. i keep my cardstock in the clear horizontal paper trays, in the 5 cubes below the pattern paper.
i use the cropper hopper vertical paper holders for my pattern paper. each one holds up to 400 sheets of pattern paper. i'm not going to do the math, as to how many sheets of paper i have in those cubes. lol! personally, i like to buy THIS SET, that comes with 1 paper holder, 4 paper pouches, and 12 dividers. the paper pouches hold up to 50 sheets of pattern paper. i love to use those for individual manufacturers, to seperate collections from a favorite manufacturer, or even to hold 12x12 sticker sheets and alphabet sheets. and the dividers come in handy for seperating papers within the paper holder or the paper pouches.
one thing that i never seem to do in my scraproom, is to label things. i have kept all those paper holders up there, without any labeling as to what is inside of each one. so when i go to look for a certain paper, i will pull out each paper holder, until i find what i need. since i am now freshly organized and have similiar manufacturers grouped together, i thought it was a good time to label things.
i do sort and organize my pattern paper by manufacturer. it's just how i work, and how i scrap. 94% of the time, i can tell you who made what paper, just by looking at it. a talent that will get me no where in regular life, but counts for something in my scrapping life. lol! most of the time, i just toss all the papers from each manufacturer in together in the paper holder. if i have a LOT of a manufacturer's papers, then i will seperate some of the collections within their spot in the paper holder.
the paper holders have this small cut out circle on the front. so i figured i would adhere my labels, directly over that circle. i had a few different ideas i was tossing around. but i finally decided on a basic punched out circle. sometimes, if i want to get something done, i need to make it quick and easy.
i went with a 2.5 inch circle punch. so i created a bunch of 2.5 inch text boxes on a page, in a word processing program. i typed in the names of the manufacturers for each paper holder, centering them within the text box and resizing my font as needed. some paper holders have one or two manufacturers, and some have three or four manufacturers. after i printed them, i used my fiskars circle punch to punch out each set. i used 4 glue dots on each circle, to adhere it to the front of the paper holder.
how cute is this font? and you'll never guess what it's called. "too much paper". i thought it was highly appropiate for labeling my pattern paper. lol! you can download it for free from kevin and amanda, one of my favorite places to find fonts. you're very welcome :)
i'll show you my four cubes of paper. this will give you a good idea of what manufacturers i'm fond of. you know making memories is up there. after 4 years of designing for them, i have built up a very large stash of their papers. the two paper holders that are turned around, hold a lot of "backstock". extras of what is in the other two paper holders.
i also have a large supply of bella blvd, and even a lot of basic grey. not sure if you can tell, but in that first bella blvd paper holder, i have some of the paper pouches inside. i have one that holds their older alphabet sheets, and one that holds their newer alphabet sheets.
fancy pants, little yellow bicycle, echo park, pebbles, american crafts, dear lizzy, and jillibean soup.
the first paper holder here, holds assorted papers. these are really just manufacturers that i have a small amount of papers, but not a lot of papers. this holder, has a TON of different manufacturers inside. that second paper holder? that has all that paper that's 3-5 years old, that i can't seem to get rid of. lol! classic chatterbox papers and ki memories papers, that i never seem to use, but can't get rid of yet. the last two paper holders, have 4 manufacturers in each. more favorites of mine.
in the "assorted paper" holder, i use these 12x12 white file folders. they're pretty ancient, and i can't seem to find anything like them to link you too. they have the hanging file folders, but these are just regular folders. i probably have about 20 of them, in just this one paper holder.
in the rest of the paper holders, i use the clear dividers to seperate papers. i use them to seperate manufacturers from each other. or to seperate collections, within the same manufacturer. they have tabs on the top, so i guess i could really label those too. baby steps, people. baby steps ;)
so there you go. my entire pattern paper collection. totally organized and labeled. i feel like i made such a huge accomplishment, with this one little project. next up, maybe i'll even label all the baskets of embellishments on my shelves. maybe. we'll see.
wow laura you are a busy girl these days. i love the way you organized your paper. the labels are fun and perfect too. how awesome to have all that paper to play with and inspire you. it always feels good to clean and sort and reorganize our scrap supplies. my space needs a good pick up too. thanks for sharing this with us.
Posted by: dawn | June 08, 2011 at 03:23 AM
Laura...your labelled paper looks great. Thanks for showing how you organize your papers.
Posted by: Karen H | June 08, 2011 at 04:08 AM
It is looking great. I have these shelves too but I just have crap tossed on them here and there. I really need to get some holders and some baskets to organize everything as well. Still not sure how I want to do it but been collecting ideas and keeping my eyes open.
Posted by: Amy | June 08, 2011 at 07:58 AM
You have been elevated to goddess-like status in my scrapbooking hall of fame! Love what you've done here, Laura. :)
Posted by: Caroline | June 08, 2011 at 09:18 AM
wow, you have a serious pattern paper collection! Mine is stored in plastic 12 x 12 drawers which are housed in an armoire, I don't really like to look at the plastic drawers so this works for me. I organize them by design: flowers, stripes, polka dots, words and misc. meaning any old pattern. That misc drawer is huge, need to weed through that every once in awhile. Your scrap space looked great in the CK creative spaces book, I know it's your old space, but it still looked great anyway!
Posted by: Laurie LaRiviere | June 08, 2011 at 10:12 AM
serious organizational heaven. :)
Posted by: Lynn Ghahary | June 08, 2011 at 11:24 AM
Laura, you gave me the greatest idea! Thank you and if you don't mind I am going to lift this idea from you, lol! I too have a lot of pattern paper and I was getting frustrated and pretty much misplacing my favorite papers. Another great idea and I am going to use this starting tonight and I have some time to start too. Thanks Laura excellent excellent idea:)
Posted by: Felicia Young | June 08, 2011 at 12:27 PM
You've inspired me to finally tackle this project! I don't like having my paper in the armoire where it lives now as I can't see it. I have the Cropper Hopper paper holders and the Expedit. I just need to figure out how to evenly cut the paper holders to fit on the shelves. I wish I had cut them before assembling as it would have been so much easier before they were creased. Oh, well...
Posted by: Penny | June 08, 2011 at 01:20 PM
WHOA that is a lot of paper! Even though my stash is teeny by comparison (seriously), you've still inspired me to try to organize it just a little bit better. We'll see how this goes!
Posted by: Joanna | June 08, 2011 at 01:50 PM
I did this awhile back, but did not label the front as cute as you did!
Thanks for the inspiration! You are very organized, as well as talented!! (Thanks for font, too!) I missed that one(;
Posted by: Suzanne Sergi | June 08, 2011 at 02:14 PM
Dang-that's a lot of organizing! I actually purged some paper that I had that I'd had forever and then some I didn't see myself using, felt good. I do need to go through and label though...Good for you!! :)
Posted by: Diana Waite | June 08, 2011 at 02:38 PM
You are AMAZING!! You should feel very proud of yourself!!! You are inspiring more than a few scrappers to organize their paper stash this weekend!
Posted by: Jamie | June 08, 2011 at 06:49 PM
looks purdy :) can you please organize my brain as well because I couldn't remember for the life of me if I had commented or not, lol!!
Posted by: carla | June 08, 2011 at 09:24 PM
Love how you organized your paper. My papers are still organized by color; however, I may want to change this soon to be by manufacturer so I can find papers that easily go together.
Posted by: Laura T. | June 09, 2011 at 09:37 AM
It looks great!! You do what I do.. divide by mfrs. I have 8 cropper hopper's in my closet. After this big ol box of goodies that came today, I need to reorganize again!! But, that is perfectly ok. I LOVE my goodies!! ;)
Posted by: Michelle | June 09, 2011 at 07:48 PM
I love the way you've organised your paper! Going to steal all these ideas to bring some order to the mess at my place that is going to be cleaned up 'one day' =)
Posted by: Bel | June 09, 2011 at 10:40 PM
Confession: I still have paper from when I first started scrapping in 03. And I do need to clean out my papers but I've been procrastinating--what else is new?
What I'm curious about is those cropper hopper paper holders...how do they fit in your expedit?? I have a 2x4 expedit by my desk & they won't fit. :( Did you trim the cropper hoppers??
Great way to label your holders. I just use a label maker...but I LOVE that font!! ;)
Posted by: Sara Rossi | June 12, 2011 at 10:02 AM
girlfriend! that is some serious paper collection!!! i use those paper holders too, but for my cardstock.
~d
Posted by: danni | June 16, 2011 at 09:49 PM
Love the idea. I actually have mine kind of scattered all over the place a little bit in one place a little in another. I think I will start this project real soon so I can get more organized.
Posted by: Becky | June 25, 2011 at 05:08 PM
This is awesome! I think I have about 10 of those and basically organize my pp the way you do (I have the same weird talent of recognizing pp - lol!). But I must say, yours looks so much more organized with the labels (and the Expedit shelving doesn't hurt). I haven't gone through my pp in a LONG time. I'm afraid. So very afraid. Can you please come over and sort mine for me? ;)
Posted by: Anne F | June 26, 2011 at 11:14 PM
I love the way you organized your paper, but did you have to trim your cropper hopper paper holders, or are they making those a little shorter now, I bought one and it was too tall for my expedite. Love your scrap rooms, old and new!
Posted by: Crarmy | January 11, 2012 at 07:43 AM
I love your page!!!!!!
keep the entries coming!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Kiara | September 12, 2012 at 01:35 AM
Did you trim your Cropper Hopper paper files to fit in the Expedit?
Posted by: Tanya | December 06, 2013 at 06:01 PM
LOL... You make me feel positively normal!
Posted by: Linda Willman | July 24, 2015 at 04:09 AM
Did you have any problems getting the cropper hopper paper holders to fit in the expedit cubes? It looks wonderful!
Posted by: Becky | May 09, 2016 at 05:59 PM